Man with gas can threatens to burn house down, kill wife and son

The Bellevue Police Department responded to an East Main Street apartment Monday evening after a woman called to say her neighbor texted her “help me” and they were afraid the suspect would do something to hurt them, according to the police report.

The neighbor said the woman told her “everyone” was in the living room when Jesse Cheatham, 24, of 230 E. Main St., Apt. 1, Bellevue, walked in and began “going crazy,” police said.

Police officers arrived at 8:35 p.m. and were told the man had threatened to burn down his house with family inside.

The woman said Cheatham burst through the door with a five-gallon jug of gasoline and threatened to “burn the house down and put her and their son in a body bag.” Others corroborated the story and a five-gallon gas can was on the porch with the cap off near the door, according to the report.

When asked what had happened with the gas can, Cheatham told police he spent five days at St. Charles Mercy Hospital in Toledo “to get better so (he) and (the woman) could be a family.”

Cheatham said he took a taxi from Toledo to Bellevue. When he returned home, his wife told him she wanted a divorce so she could be with another man — and that man was at the residence, according to the police report.

Cheatham told police he “flipped out” after he “saw the man, who his wife was banging, was in the house,” the report states.

When asked if he threatened them, Cheatham told police, “I threatened everyone,” according to the report.

He was charged with domestic violence by threat, a first-degree misdemeanor.